


Hinterland

by Graculus



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 21:27:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graculus/pseuds/Graculus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the trope bingo prompt 'mind control'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hinterland

  
_Ско́лько во́лка ни корми́, он всё в лес смо́трит._  
However well you feed the wolf, he still looks at the woods.  
Russian proverb

He'd played his part well.

It hadn't been easy at first, but they'd put it down to unfamiliarity with a new country, as he'd hoped they would. A touch of naivety on their part, delightfully so, combined with a desire to see what they wanted to see – theirs was the promised land, after all, so who wouldn't be dazzled by what it had to offer? 

And he was used to following orders by then, beaten into him by the other cadets when he'd stepped out of line initially, then years of having it ingrained in him, the need to be what he was told to be and nothing more. More was dangerous, more was what had brought him to this place and couldn't be allowed to gain the upper hand. 

He didn't remember much about Kiev, but what he did remember was an endless succession of days where hunger ripped at his belly like the starving wolves he heard outside the city walls, nights where he froze till he was certain he wouldn't wake if he fell asleep. One of many, he'd been all but an animal when they'd found him, struggling to string together an intelligible sentence even if the reward for that task was the food he desperately craved. Punishment and reward, that was all he'd known for quite some time. 

They trusted him for longer and longer, like a comet swinging in its orbit to the furthest reaches of cold and darkness before plunging back into the solar system once more – each time, Cambridge, Paris, he'd come back to them even though that was the last thing he wanted, the last thing anyone could ever want. Each time he was unmade, remade in the image of Illya Kuryakin, faithful servant of the motherland, before being released once more to follow their plans, achieve what he set out to achieve, for them and not himself. 

Who was he, after all, if you took all of that away? 

And who was he now, Illya Kuryakin of the U.N.C.L.E, more constrained than he had ever been and wanting more than anything to run and never stop. He had a role to play, a role even more prescribed than that of naval officer or PhD candidate, a partner to convince, an organisation to serve. More time in the world away from the men who held his leash, more time to become whatever it was he truly was, if that were even possible. He couldn't know, how could he ever know, when the only things anyone in this brave new world knew about him were a lie?

He wanted to believe this was the man he really was, the man who his partner believed him to be, but knew despite all of that there was only one true thing about him - he could still hear the wolves howling.


End file.
